Steam Charts: Christmas Miracle Edition
Charts and graphs and STATISTICS
I don't what is this? How many? Are we sure we're in the right charts? This is definitely the Steam Charts, where the mad-brained broken people just buy the same four games over and over and over? Because something is up. People have only bought the same three games over and over!
10. Northgard
Here is my impression of me:
"Hello I am a fat idiot."
Here is a more relevant impression of me:
"Maybe this will be the real-time strategy game I'll want to play! Everyone around me is loving playing it, and while I'm a fat idiot, I can just about manage to muddle through most games."
*looks at a screenshot of icons and charts and boxes and units and lines and circles and numbers and buttons*
"Oh look, a lovely bee."
I put the "impress" into "impression".
9. Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Incessantly discounted since release (it's just had another weekend at 33% off, moments after it did the same during the Steam Not-Thanksgiving Sale, that you can just about catch if you read this before the end of Monday), I suspect that Ubi made a mistake releasing this the year after Origins. A 39,000 hour-long game, before the average Jo would have finished playing the last 39,000 hour-long game, which at first glance looks incredibly similar. "It's Greece instead of Egypt" you'd sensibly think, despite Odyssey being the better game, with the boats, and the hunts, and so on.
Also, you know what? I think the biggest mistake might have been a second game in a row beginning with 'O'. That might sound silly, but honestly, with names as dreary and forgettable as "Origins" and "Odyssey", you can forgive the browsing buyer for thinking, "Oh, that's last year's one," and moving on. Something not helped in the least by releasing it at the gouging price of £50 for a digital PC edition. Which frankly serves them right.
That has been my analysis of why Odyssey might not have met sales expectations. That'll be £75,000 please Ubisoft.
8. Farming Simulator 19
And the indoctrination of Big Farming continues, as yet another generation of young, impressionable gamers are lured into the dark world of seed sowing and animal feeding. And why? I'll tell you why. Daylight savings.
I'm on to you, farmers, and I won't rest until your evil control of time itself is brought to an end.
7. Monster Hunter: World
Right, I've decided what it's going to be if this game's going nowhere. It's going to be Monster Hunter: World guides. They're big on the internet right now, aren't they? In fact, if you listen carefully you can hear Dave and Ollie are writing thirteen of them at the same time. Well I want a piece of this pie, so here begin my guides to Monster Hunter: World, which I may or may not have ever played.
The Scrangletang
Defeating The Scrangletang (his first name is The, his mum is Mrs Scrangletang) requires a deft hand and then one reasonably good hand.
The Scrangletang's weaknesses and resistances
Like the Crumpleblump, The Scrangletang is vulnerable to withering sarcasm and berries. Bladed weapons scare her, but it's cruel to frighten people and so arrows are the more gallant choice. And remember, Tangs are resistant to keyboard-based attacks, so you'll need to switch to controller for this one.
How to fight The Scrangletang
Using the controls, move toward The Scrangletang, and then using the attack buttons, attack at it until it's dead.
How not to fight The Scrangletang
Head to your front door, leave, walk to the nearest bus stop and get on the next bus that arrives. Get off after three stops, and then just lie down on the pavement.
6. Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden
Alec seems awfully taken with this one, but I'm not sure if that's just because he's a massive Howard The Duck fan, and pretended that the whole XCOM-me-do was a Howard The Duck tie-in game.
Although he'd be a fool to, because look, the actual Howard The Duck game!
5. X4: Foundations
Yet Another Space Shopping Game XXVII has only just been reviewed on this oh-so-splendid website this very day. And according to Nic, it's all a bit flimsy.
So here's how to fix these games: REMOVE THE SHOPPING. Build these amazing universes, and then just let us have a fuck-off brilliant ship to fly about in, explore, shoot baddies, and just generally have a brilliant time without having to worry about space politics and space currencies.
Yes, I am definitively arguing that we should get the space politics out of our games.
4. Artifact
With Counter-Strike Global Offensive going free last week, I imagine I'll have to retire my HILARIOUS image for that game. Which is infuriating, as I'd literally just started a new running joke for the faithful, where the cracks in the counter were going to gradually get bigger week by week, until eventually something would emerge from inside, and it'd be this whole thing. And then the moment I began, they stopped charging for the game!
Well, I'm not making that mistake again. You see if I think of anything funny to do with the dreary inevitability of seeing Artifact in the charts every week, until they get all the £16s they're going to get from the dumbos who will pay up before it goes free to compete with Hearthstone. YOU SEE!
3. PlayerUnknown's Plunkbat
Last week I went through my box of CDs, just so I could make a dumb joke on Twitter. I don't own a CD player, and my PC doesn't even have a DVD drive. And going through that box, I found a long-forgotten self-titled album by a band called Volcano I'm Still Excited.
I love this album! There's a CD player in our car, and forgetting to even check if it was on Spotify, I put it in to listen to as I drove my boy somewhere or other. He loved it too! Turns out it is on Spotify, which led me to see if they'd ever recorded anything else. They hadn't. Sadface. But it turns out that's because the band's creator was... Mark Duplass! As in, one of the Duplass Brothers, the creators of the excellent Room 104, and indeed the two horrible doctors in The Mindy Project. And a million other things.
Which is all my excuse for posting this (which only works in stereo, phone users):
2. Just Cause 4
Honestly you people. I don't have a lot to add to my review of this colossally broken and dreary game, but to make sure you've seen this:
1. Stellaris: MegaCorp
Regarding the words here for Northgard, I decided on Stellaris's release that This Would Be The One. The space game I could play. It was not the space game I could play. Because, for me the game I want to play is the official screenshot above. The game I find there's actually there to play is the official screenshot below:
I'm too old and tired for "Resource Production". For that many tiny numbers. Honestly, you excellent people who can enjoy it, I'm proud of you. Really I am. And this DLC has found enough of you to get straight to the top in the pre-Christmas rush. Impressive stuff.
The Steam Charts are compiled via Steam's internal charts of the highest grossing games on Steam over the previous week.